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On Wednesday afternoon, President Trump announced the reinstatement of a ban, via Twitter, preventing transgender people from serving in any and all branches of the military “in any capacity.” The ban would not only prohibit transgender people from joining military but would force military personnel already serving to give up their positions. This decision seems to have been made very abruptly considering that, during both his campaign and his presidency thus far, he has never voiced his interest or concern about whether or not he thinks trans people should be able to serve their country. In fact, senators from both major parties were quite shocked by this decision and immediately took to Twitter to advocate for trans involvement in the military, thanking them for their service and assuring them that who they are is not a “burden”, a word Trump used to describe the medical expenses of trans people in the armed forces. Even Republican Senator John McCain, who is notoriously socially conservative, voiced his outrage over Trump’s news, saying that the tweets Trump posted announcing the ban were “unclear” and that “There is no reason to force any service members who are able to fight, train, and deploy to leave the military.” While Trump claims the ban is due to the cost of hormone replacement therapy and/or reassignment surgery that transgender military personnel may need, these expenses are a fraction of the cost of the Department of Defense’s healthcare expenditures, totaling to only around $8.4 million, at most, out of a 49 billion dollar budget. In other words, attempting to justify this ban as a way to decrease costs is simply untrue. In addition, banning an entire demographic of people from the military is not only discriminatory, and echoes not so distant moments in American history when black or gay people couldn’t serve, but it decreases the number of willing and able citizens who want to fight to protect their country. All the while, this regressive and discriminatory announcement of the ban falls on the 69th anniversary of the day President Harry Truman desegregated the armed forces.

I am a feminist in the truest form. I am relatively independent, and I fully support equality between men and women. Yes, I said equality. Despite the fact that women are superior to men in the sense that they can hold a full-time job, raise kids, clean the house, and cook for their families, I don’t necessarily think it’s right to act in such a way(all the time). I came across a blog post a little while ago in which a self-proclaimed feminist thought it was insulting for a man to hold a door open for her. She was offended because she thought that she was thoroughly capable of holding the door open for herself. This blew my mind. Men do not have to hold the door open for women. They do it out of respect, not to assume their “dominant position” of male authority. Women are perfectly capable of doing this for themselves, but that is besides the point. This was just one among many other things she was upset about.

I honestly believe so many “feminists” are missing the point. Men are nice to other men, men are nice to women, women are nice to other women, and even sometimes women are nice to men. That’s all it is. People like to be nice to each other sometimes, even if they don’t know each other. We live in such a socially deficient world, you’d think having a man hold the door open for you would be a refreshing surprise. If you think such a simple act is another way to make women feel inferior, then you have already proven yourself to be inferior all on your own.

I’m a feminist, though, right?

Sleeping with a bunch of men and dating with a “men’s mentality” doesn’t make you a feminist. Always acting offended when someone of the opposite sex tries to help you is not being a feminist. Degrading other women for choosing to take their husband’s last names and for choosing to live the domestic lifestyle is not being a feminist. It just makes you a jerk. Sorry. Haven’t you ever heard of being the better example?

The whole point of feminism is to rise above and join the pursuit of equality. However, that does not require you to parade around NYC with your top off and your boobs swaying in the wind. How is that having respect for your body? We live in a world in which breasts are over sexualised. I wish it wasn’t that way, but it is. And besides, that doesn’t help the cause. Men do not take you seriously that way. And isn’t the point to be taken seriously? We’ve been beating this around the bush for so long now. Everyone talks about feminism and equality, but nothing actually happens. I’m sure everyone has heard about women being allowed to hold authoritative positions in the military. While that is a great step in the right direction, women are still being raped and molested in the military. In this country. They actually have to fear sexual violation while they are serving their country. That is not okay. Rape is not okay. So while you’re going about your “feminist”ways, worrying about all the evil men, who try to do favors for you, just know that there are women out their who are actually being violated and stripped of their rights to feel safe and secure.